Odds & Ends
by las torturas encantadoras
Summary: The Hunger Games ruins everyone. Even its winners. / Brutus/Enobaria.
1. Odds

It takes him fourteen years.

She wins her Hunger Games (the 60th) at fifteen years old. Brutus is twenty-five at the time and is sitting on a comfortable couch in the middle of his Capitol apartment.

Enobaria Lapsis is the youngest volunteer from Two in a decade. She had so much time, everyone lamented when she stepped proudly up onto the stage. So much time in which to hone her skills and make herself a Victor, and she threw it all away on the off chance that she'd win. The male tribute from Two, Julian, is eighteen and powerfully built – the standard, for all the volunteers that come from Brutus's district. And there, next to him, is this wiry, tallish girl who looks for all the world like she should be sitting quietly in an Academy classroom. Not stabbing dummies at the Training Center.

But Brutus has a bad habit of picking favorites, and he would be lying if he said Enobaria is not his favorite for the 60th Games.

In the next week, the little girl from Two transitions. She goes from having 1:20 odds to 13:1. Her clothes rip in the Arena and her muscles are defined, her skin pale but tanning quickly. She becomes less of a child and more of a warrior, a bloodthirsty being unafraid to kill.

He is proud.

Fourteen years later and Enobaria's odds have probably increased astronomically in her favor. The position of Capitol Darling has been passed over to Cashmere Clear from District One (and, unbeknownst to him, Katniss Everdeen will be crowned this title in just a few days), but that doesn't make Brutus's favorite any less dangerous. Her teeth end in sharp golden points, and two months after she has that done, she waltzes into the Victor's Village with a diamond in her left canine.

Brutus is never sure if this decision is entirely hers. On one hand, it is exactly the type of thing Enobaria would do.

On the other, she enjoys eating, and that's hard to do when there is a large possibility of biting through your own tongue with every helping of truffle-glazed potatoes.

Clove volunteers for the 74th Annual Hunger Games, and when he sees the glint of malicious potential in her gunmetal-grey eyes, it reminds him strikingly of Enobaria. (She's sitting next to him eating ice cubes at the time.)

"Cato is the best we've had in years," she says, and a glassy crunch issues from the woman on the cushion to his right. This is a yearly ritual, watching the Reaping on television from Brutus's house in the Victor's Village. "Who volunteered from One?"

Brutus shrugs. "Gloss is trying to get his buddy's daughter to do it. Glimmer."

"Glimmer?" She quirks an eyebrow and pours the rest of her glass of ice into her mouth. "Glimmer Eustacia Quinn, daughter of Gild Demetrius Clear?" Now it is his turn to stare at her skeptically.

"Yeah, sure. That one."

"Fuck," says Enobaria, chewing her ice loudly, "you really think Cash's niece could do this?"

"Cashmere did it."

Enobaria rolls her eyes. "Pure luck. Anyways, guess the odds are in our Clove's favor, if that's who her biggest competition is."

"Her biggest competition is Cato," he says calmly. "Besides, I thought you didn't pick favorites." Enobaria snorts and stands up, folding her arms.

"I've been down to the Training Center. I've met her before." She grins, golden and sharp. "Cato better watch his back. That's all I'm gonna say."

"You're not staying here?" he asks her as she walks to the doorway, more to needle her than anything else. She turns around and gives him a look that stings like salt in a wound.

"Here?"

She shakes her head, half-laughs.

"In your dreams."

She leaves and he turns off the television.

Too cocky for her own good.

She always was.


	2. Games

If he were to choose what he remembers most about the 74th Games, it would be some kind of twisted three-way tie between the three events (one of them exciting, two of them not).

The first of these memories is a little inconsequential.

Cato and Clove are Careers through and through, and they are military, passionate and calculated about everything. Brutus loves it. For the 73rd Games they had two big-headed idiots who had no care for strategy or anything of that sort. But every word Cato and Clove speak is chosen well and for a reason; there is no wasted chatter with these two. Brutus wants Cato to win just so that they can have drinks in the Capitol every now and then and discuss the Arenas of their own personal games. (He doesn't wish that for every tribute.)

He knows Enobaria feels the same way about Clove. Which is strange, and amusing, because Enobaria's brand of showing affection involves a lot of stumbling around analogies and acting stoic. And offering to kill people for whomever she's feeling warmer than usual towards. It can be unnerving, and it has put off so many Capitolian men who are after her charms – or, rather, lack thereof. But to him? It is incredibly amusing, watching Enobaria and Clove throwing steak knives across the dining room of the District 2 Capitol-Designated Living Space and engaging in fistfights across the living room floor.

Sometimes Enobaria watches television with him after the tributes are asleep, because she hasn't had a long day of training but she does want to show off how Clove dislocated her shoulder today and she's going to be a terror in the Arena, and she has no doubt of her potential to be a Victor.

Brutus often feels like rolling his eyes at this. Because, sure, Clove is more than just a scrappy fighter and her skills with knives are reminiscent of Enobaria's own – but Cato. Cato is smart. And Brutus isn't going to lie – he wasn't expecting that, not with a burly volunteer from 2. But Cato is deliberate in every parry and every strike of the broadswoards they practice (illegally, in fact) with. Cato slices the limbs off every dummy in the Training Center without even breaking a sweat. He is of a caliber that Brutus thinks is close to his own. Not quite, but with a bit of training up and the requisite crown of golden laurels on his head?

It could work. Cato could do it.

District Two hasn't had a victor since Enobaria won fourteen years ago. This makes for a lot of elbowing from Finnick Odair at Capitol parties, and a lot of money owed to Cashmere and Gloss. Cashmere and Gloss are his and Enobaria's perpetual drinking partners, for no other reason than to maintain that Career alliance that they feel most superior in. (Cashmere, he's discovered, can drink them all under the table.)

And this year, all of that could change.

But his most vivid memories of the 74th Games are not of talking strategy and sponsors with Enobaria (and by talking, Brutus is referring to "spirited debates" that end in smashed wine glasses), slipping a couple drops of some half-legal substance into some Capitol socialite's drink to get some extra sponsor money, or even broadsword practice with Cato. There are a couple of nights, after Cato and Clove have settled in nicely to a routine at the Training Center, when they both get to the apartment (the Designated Living Space, actually), and the Avoxes have laid out an expansive dinner for them.

He's getting him and Enobaria more wine (because Enobaria is always more fun with more wine) when Cato and Clove, sweaty and without the energy to bother with overlong Capitol showers, collapse into chairs next to them and dig in to their food. It is not a night of much conversation, but it's the most relaxed he can remember being in a long time. And across from him, Enobaria actually smiles once, and it isn't tinged with malice or the knowledge that she's about to rip your throat out.

And it's that moment, that smile, that he remembers most.


	3. Expectations

The memory that stands out freshest, most painful in its explicitness, is the death of Clove.

Normally, when a tribute dies (and they all do, eventually, and he figures that as mentors they should be prepared for shit like this by now), Enobaria vents her frustration by bribing Atala to let her throw knives and stab foam dummies in the Center. She usually comes back a little bloodied, unused to sharpened knives, and then goes for drinks with Cashmere, who, Brutus has gathered, is horrible with empathy in general. _Well, that makes two of you!_ he always snorts when Enobaria mentions this dispiritedly. The woman from One usually does nothing but rub it in, however unwittingly.

It's not the grieving process he envisions, because Brutus has to envision, as he has never truly grieved before, but it is definitely what he expects from Enobaria.

When they televise Clove's death, Caeasar Flickerman's voice is imposed over her screams. "Ooh!" he is saying theatrically. "That looks painful!" There's a nod from Claudius Templesmith, and then the bang of a cannon. Caesar brings up a picture of Clove and says that that's another of the Career pack taken out, and makes some comment about Thresh's strength being something nobody will want to count out now! And then there's some impressed comments from the both of them about Thresh's mercy re: District 12 Starry-Eyed Lover Girl, and some conspiratorial whispering about the state of District 12 Starry-Eyed Lover Boy, back in the cave. Graphics are popping up on the screen at alarming, colorful frequency. There is a poll, and Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are tied for Most Popular Tribute.

And the whole time, Brutus is watching her for some sign of a reaction. She is watching, dead-eyed, as they replay Clove's death and flash a colorful list of fallen tributes. Unfeeling, cold, as he knows her best. As they rewind and show Cato, crouched at Clove's side, holding her hand and begging her to stay with him. (Cato, he thinks, is not ruined yet.)

When they go to commercial, he reaches for the remote and turns the television off.

That night, she crashes into bed with him, for the first time ever and it took him fourteen years, but she's with him.

It's not quite what he expected.

But then, she never is.


	4. Success

When Cato dies, she understands.

Quietly, which is rather unusual for her, but she looks more tired than usual that evening. Like she's been waiting forever for something and is starting to be exhausted by it. He figures that after a lifetime spent pandering to the Capitol's every desire just to keep a relative level of sanity intact, he should be tired, too.

He is.

"We should go home," he says, because with the death of two more tributes, there is nothing left for them here in the Capitol. And with one of the two from 12 looking to take the victory, he doesn't know if he can stand a banquet with Haymitch getting wildly drunk at the seat next to him.

She nods.

"We can't get away from them, can we?" she says quietly, leaning against the cool glass of the train window and watching as the shiny fortresses of 1 speed by them at breakneck pace.

"Get away?" he clarifies.

"The Capitol." Her voice is hardly audible. "We're all just pieces in the Games." He says nothing; she smiles wryly, full of regrets and anger. "Even though we won. And to think. Cato and Clove, you and I, we're the best we can do."

The best, he thinks. The best of what they can become.


	5. Respect

The first time Brutus kisses her – really kisses her, no polite pecks on the cheek or open-mouthed hunger from that night at the apartments – it is surprisingly expected. It happens like this: he tells her how long he's wanted to kiss her for, and she dares him to do it. As with seemingly everything about Enobaria, it begins with a challenge.

Her lips are soft and she keeps them closed – no golden points to tangle around. He can feel the pressure of her palms on his shoulders, and the slight dig of her fingertips through the fabric of his thermal shirt.

Enobaria decides when she is finished kissing him. She breaks them apart, stands up suddenly and moves to the window, and when he joins her there, she looks deliberately away.

He wants to ask her if she is okay, but he doesn't know what she would say to that.

"I – " she says, and then stops. "Why?"

It's a simple enough question, but it demands such a complicated answer. He clears his throat, and then shrugs; any ideas of a planned speech fly right out the window.

"I don't – I respect you," he says finally.

"You respect me." She still does not turn, but he doesn't miss the hint of derision in her voice. He supposes it must sound silly, but it's true. There are so few people who he respects these days, really feels he owes some kind of debt to. And people he cares about? Only her, only she has a space on that list.

"Of course," he tells her. "Of course I do."

Enobaria sighs. He touches her arm and wills her to catch something left unsaid in that touch.

"It doesn't work that way." she chokes. "You and I are always going to be – there is no way out of this, you know that."

"You think I don't?" He shakes his head and looks out the window, but he sees nothing beyond the reflections in the glass. "There will never be a way out, but you're here."

She looks at him, finally, and he turns so that their gazes meet. "Me?" she repeats, sounding almost startled. Then her expression softens, the glow of the firelight bouncing off her cheeks. Her eyes flicker down, then up, then back to him, and finally her fingers land near his collar, her lips on his again.

And all at once, she's there.


	6. Winter

Kissing becomes frequent. He learns things about her and so he no longer has to wonder.

Some of these things are intrinsically disturbing, of course. She recounts each and every one of her ten kills with perfect detail, her voice hard-edged and calm. He supposes he shouldn't be surprised at that; after all, their only worth is measured in bodies.

But other things are delightful, or as close as they can be – he doubts they'd be so lovely to anyone but him. There's just something, he thinks, about a girl who can throw a knife.

Nobody comments on this new kind of togetherness that they've found. Not outright, anyways; Gloss grins at one of the parties, elbows him roughly, and can't stop the guffaw from leaving his lips. He can see Cash from across the room, her eyes shaded in blue and gold, sliding in a knowing glance towards them. Either nobody else notices, or none of them care. It doesn't matter. Brutus doesn't feel like pressing the issue.

Autumn turns into winter and the filled houses in the Victor's Village light up with square yellow windows. The snow falls thickly in District Two, drawing the caps of the mountaintops all the way down to the foothills, blanketing the roads with dark slush. It covers the walkway up to his house and, one day, arrives in four-foot drifts that cover the bottoms of his windows. The kitchen stays warm.

Enobaria's hair darkens, all the way down to the color of blackened coffee beans.


	7. Possessions

In the second month of winter, he asks her questions.

It feels like a natural progression, and she asks them back. They lie awake at night, as they always do, but now there are words to fill the silence. He finds himself telling her things that he has never told anyone else. What he can remember of his parents, for instance, though he hasn't seen them since he was six years old. He finds himself trusting her more than is strictly necessary, but he doesn't ask if she trusts him too.

"Did you ask for them to have your teeth done?" he says one night. He can tell this one takes her aback, because her spine stiffens a little beside him, her hair that runs in rivers over his arm moves slightly as she shifts.

"No." In the darkness, he hears her slight intake of breath, as though she is going to laugh. "But I did ask for the diamond. I felt like I should have something of my own."

She leaves it unsaid, of course; they have nothing of their own. Not in this house, or anywhere else, and it can all be taken away from them at the flick of the right person's fingers. Even their status is artificial; that, too, will be taken away when they are replaced with younger versions of themselves.

"Did it hurt?" He surprises himself with the question; he hadn't meant to ask it, but now that he has, he finds himself truly wondering. Would it hurt, to have them file down bone and cap it in gold? Was it painted on, like nail lacquer, out of a bottle by those giggling aestheticians?

"Not worse than anything else," she says softly, and for some reason, not even the words but the tone of her voice make him draw closer to her, pull her tighter to him.

"But you have me," she adds, as if it's a prologue to 'something of my own', a hopeful lilt on the last word.

He nods, and she does not see; she feels.


	8. Nostalgia

In the third month of winter, on a Saturday midmorning, they are finally assigned to go to the Training Center. This is a rotation which happens every two weeks, but they have been forgotten about since early this year. Brutus knows this because in the kitchen Enobaria has a calendar, on which she marks off days since she has had to set foot in the Gold Training Center. When the telephone on its hook rings, Enobaria takes her calendar down, folds her arms, and sighs resignedly at him with a hint of a smile on her face.

The Centers in Two are divided helpfully into three colors: Red, Blue and Gold. Children begin in Red at age six; all move up to Blue; those deemed to have the determination, the drive, and the physical perfection necessary are granted entry into the four-year-long program at the Gold Center. Those who are not are sent into the mountain, into the workforce, or out to become Peacekeeprs. The Gold Center is exactly as Brutus recalls, exactly as it was on his first day there. There is the faint scent of sweat and foam mats, the clanking of weapons and weights, and even an authentic trainer barking orders at the latest crop of tall, well-muscled children.

"Who're the candidates this year?" he hears Enobaria ask, jolting him out of his nostalgia.

"Cain – " the trainer jabs his a thumb at a black-haired boy on the free weights – "and Claudia." He nods towards a blonde girl with a thick waist, flashing blue eyes, sparring with a boy who is precisely her height.

Training runs from five in the morning until approximately noon, at which time there's a half-hour lunch and then seven extra hours of work.

Brutus and Enobaria are required by the Organization to stay for at least forty-five minutes.

"Nostalgia, hm?" she asks him, glancing at the cafeteria plates of genetically engineered slop. Designed to provide enough energy and nothing more; perfect training for when you're stuck in the Arena and everything is either bony or poisonous, Brutus thinks.

It's strange, because the part of him that misses training does not miss this. The sense of palpable urgency about every single one of these kids, the tension that hangs in the air when they realize they have five months to get into the best shape of their lives only to waste it all away in the Arena.

He misses training because when he lands a blow on the side of the training dummy's head, slices them apart with broadswords, pitches javelins into targets, he is not thinking of anything at all.

No dwelling on the Hunger Games, no nagging thought in the back of his mind that reads _where did Enobaria go? _late at night at a Capitol party, even though he saw a painted man wrap his arm around hers and smirk at her and pull her away. No remembrance of the evening two weeks ago when Enobaria told him calmly and neutrally about what happens when you are fifteen and pretty and engaging and everyone in the Capitol _desires_ you.

"You don't miss that, do you?" he asks, as they walk back home after lunch. "The training." She's wearing her standard-issue black coat, boots, her hands shoved in her pockets. (Despite the money and the admirers' gifts, he has never seen Enobaria in anything but District 2 Standard Issue. It makes him like her more.) Her breath makes little spirals in the sunny afternoon air.

"Of course not," she says sharply.

"You still throw, though, don't you?" he ventures. He's seen her knives lined up in the kitchen drawer, badly in need of sharpening.

"I wouldn't," she replies. "But it distracts me."

She smiles then, suddenly, and it unnerves him as always. It helps that the points interlock, that the diamond of her own invention still glitters in her left canine, but he misses her the way she was before – if there ever was a before to miss. Perhaps he misses what she might have been.

He loops his arm through hers then, and she leans against him, humming a sigh that is almost of relief.


	9. A Yes

At the end of the third month, cold, frozen rain comes pouring down in sheets. Rotation switches to Drusilla and Julius, who take instantly to the prospective Tributes for this year; there is always at least one update from them for every daily trip they take to the Gold Center. Enobaria expresses a fervent desire to rip the phone out of the wall, but refrains, because cutting off the phone would mean no more of those legally-tricky phone calls to One and Cashmere and Gloss and the only people she and Brutus have ever called friends.

One evening, while the sleet roars outside and the fire roars inside and Enobaria is busy making drip coffee from beans she managed to procure with money and persuasion, Brutus gathers his courage.

He waits calmly all night. She brings him some coffee; he drinks it in two gulps, with the hope of quelling his nerves. (It has no effect.) She is sprawled in front of the fireplace, reading Capitol newspapers and throwing the read portions into the fire, when he finally manages to dredge up some of his old fighter's instinct.

"I want to marry you," he says.

She looks up at him, firelight dancing in her eyes. "Is this like when you wanted to kiss me?" she inquires conversationally. All the better; marriage in Two is essentially a business agreement, he tells himself, no ceremony, no guests, just the lovely couple and the Justice House…

He coughs, suddenly fumbling for an answer. "No."

"No?" She raises her eyebrows and sits up, her left hand wrapped around a newspaper article about the Latest Most Popular Fashions. "Can I still dare you?"

He wants to tell her that he is nervous for something; that the impending Hunger Games and all the stress they bring makes him feel forever as though he is waiting for something bad to happen; and that he wants to be with her, bound to her even if it's by nothing more than the horrors of an Arena and a legal document.

"Come here." She waves her newspaper at him, and when he rises from the couch and draws nearer to her, she throws the crumpled paper into the fire. He feels her fingers dancing on the collar of his shirt. "That's a yes."

"Is it?" he murmurs. "I can never tell with you."

She kisses him – real, of course, always, how far they've come since that night in the Capitol apartments – and he can tell, and it's a yes.

"After the Games," she tells him that night, "all right, so we have something to look forward to."


	10. Reminders

Winter turns into spring. He learns to stop expecting things to wear off and die down. With her, they never do – but even if every ounce of passion went away, it would still be enough. They fit together enough for it to suffice.

When the trees are in full splendor, blooming into green boughs heavy with leaves and flowers in the sixth month of the year, they go back onto the two-week rotation for the Gold Training Center. Cain and Claudia fit back into their daily routine.

Neither of them are as easy to understand as Cato and Clove were, but Brutus knows it doesn't matter; they won't be mentors two years in a row, at least not together. Although he and Enobaria are easily the most popular, most marketable Victors from Two, there are rules that dictate this sort of thing. He should know; he's read the rulebooks so many times over.

He remembers hearing about the tradition in One, where, to celebrate engagement, the man buys the woman an expensive diamond ring (which is more likely to be a cheap diamond from their mines imposed on cheap gold from Two). He thinks of Enobaria, his Enobaria who never wears so much as a flicker of gold. Her teeth suffice, her true diamond with her forever, the finery that makes kissing harder than he wants to admit. Forever a reminder.

The weather is almost never truly hot in Two, with its mountain range and icy snow-capped ridges, but one balmy day, three weeks from the Reaping, Enobaria makes the suggestion of going swimming in the quarry pool.

The quarry pool is, of course, a disused quarry, filled years ago by the engineers and roped off by the Peacekeepers. The Gold center has a small lap pool, there are lakes aplenty in Two if you feel like freezing to death.

The quarry pool is theirs.

She always runs full-tilt off the cliffside to jump in, and he always makes a point to pause slightly, right on the edge – to leave himself room to change his mind. "Useless," Enobaria says, splashing him, tendrils of dark hair clinging to her bare shoulders. "By that point you're already too far." He pretends he didn't know this.

On the other side of the quarry crackles the ever-present electric fence. A reminder.

She wraps her legs around him and pulls him under with her.


	11. Announcement

Brutus wishes he could relive the moment just before. To him, the moment just before is pure bliss, and if he could live those sixty seconds for the rest of his life, looping over and over again, he would be content.

With sixty full, precious, unknown seconds left to go, Enobaria turns on the television and makes a snappy comment about President Snow's extra-special announcements cutting into her idea of an excellent dinner, which involves copious amounts of potatoes and turkey, endless crappy wine, and cake. Lots of cake.

Forty seconds to go and he settles next to her on the couch. In the kitchen, her calendar hangs serenely on the wall. It now counts down the days until the official end of the Games – four and a half weeks, or somewhere around there.

Thirty-five seconds to go, a sip of wine, the blaring Capitol insignia flickering on the screen.

Twenty seconds to go and they have abandoned the announcement in favor of careful (always careful, but sometimes they forget) kisses.

Ten seconds before the announcement begins, Enobaria knocks his glass of wine from his hand almost habitually, and it puddles in a deep bordeaux red on the floor, seeping into the rug.

His lips leave hers precisely at the moment their President's words begin to ripple through the living room.

And that night, though he feels they should be as close together as possible, they are on opposite sides of the bed.

She clutches the sheets around her, rigid, as if in death.


	12. A No

The calendar feels like a death sentence.

A thick blanket of fear settles over the house. Fear, tension, and the sweet June breeze, that comes in through the open windows with no regard for the turmoil inside.

One morning, a few days after the announcement, Enobaria says she cannot (not 'will not', he tells himself later, 'cannot', as if it makes a difference) be here, be with him, do this any longer than she already has. He has a feeling it is Enobaria's version of protecting him. He tries not to believe her, goes to the market alone to buy them some wine.

When he returns, the calendar is gone.

Now there is no ticking time bomb that hangs on the wall.

Now there is nothing.


	13. Deja Vu

The calendar feels like a death sentence.

A thick blanket of fear settles over the house. Fear, tension, and the sweet June breeze, that comes in through the open windows with no regard for the turmoil inside.

One morning, a few days after the announcement, Enobaria says she cannot (not 'will not', he tells himself later, 'cannot', as if it makes a difference) be here, be with him, do this any longer than she already has. He has a feeling it is Enobaria's version of protecting him. He tries not to believe her, goes to the market alone to buy them some wine.

When he returns, the calendar is gone.

Now there is no ticking time bomb that hangs on the wall.

Now there is nothing.


	14. Familiarity

"I'm sorry," she says, the instant they are alone on this familiar fucking train.

He is mildly surprised. Enobaria makes a habit of never apologizing. She's served her time, she always says, there is nothing to say sorry for, and if she can't have anything else she is going to take the ability to not regret her mistakes. Even when she should.

"Do you understand why I did it?" she asks. They are sitting across from each other in one of the train booths, an embarrassment of riches laid out before them. (Truffle-glazed potatoes, of course; he wonders if the Avoxes pity her.) He looks at her; her eyes are wet but her face is set in stone. "I went to all that trouble and you ruined it."

"Trouble?" he says, louder than he intended. "Yeah, you looked like you were expending so much effort, when you said you didn't care any more, and then you left."

"I said I couldn't be with you," she clarifies, her voice strained, "and I left, all so that you wouldn't have to care if I died, and then you decided that wasn't good enough and you'd rather kill us both."

He considers this; it's true.

"I would care anyway," he says. "I did care anyway." He helps himself to a few spoonfuls of truffle-glazed potatoes. And then, when he needs something else to busy himself with, two airy dinner rolls as big as his fist and as insubstantial as a puff of foam. She sits across from him, glaring resolutely out the window, and he sees her left hand dart up to wipe imperceptibly under her eyes.

"Well, I lied." she says finally. She reaches forwards for the potatoes. Their eyes meet, across the table. "I love you."

He takes a bite of the roll. "I love you too."

She flashes him a smile, sardonic and so quick that he almost misses it. "But don't say I didn't warn you," she adds. He wonders if she means it to sound so dark and heavy in the air around them.

He feels it on his heels, the growing reality that he is about to go through all the pageantry and preparation and hell of the Arena again, but this time with her, this time knowing that she will either live or die, this time trying his hardest to kill the people he's spent countless dinners with and bought drinks at Capitol bars and congratulated during Victory Tours and gloated over and betted with, who have been through it the same as him and come the closest to understanding, who all have their unique, varyingly dysfunctional ways of dealing with the innate ruin.

But he loves her, and she loves him, and she smiled, if only for a second.


End file.
